Category Archives: Movies

May rang in with a bang with an unexpected boost to sales (for no reason that I can figure), The Avengers opens this Friday, it’s time for a new monthly resolution, and I’ve started my new book Nine Steps to Sara! Whew, that’s a lot for one update!

First of all, can I just say again – The Avengers opens this Friday!!!

Okay, I’m better now.

For the month of May, I’m proud to report I still haven’t cheated on any of the previous month’s resolutions. If you remember, I’ve given up fried food, fast food, baked desserts and started exercising 5 days per week. So what to give up next? Well, sadly, I’m not seeing a whole lot of movement on the scale yet, and I know why. There are still waaay too many delicious things out there for me to eat too much of! So, for May, my resolution is to start tracking what I eat again in an online food diary. I’ve done it before with great results, but I was reluctant to get back to it because it’s so tedious! But, I know it’s good for me, so as of yesterday, I’m tracking every single thing that goes into my mouth, including the sugarless gum (which is still 4 calories per stick, ).

Nine Steps to Sara is coming along well, beginnings are always hard for me on the first pass, but hopefully I can find the right creepy/entertaining vibe I’m going for.

Let me think… what else is going on… Moonsong is doing very well so far, and I’ve been very happy with the reviews I’ve received. Now if I can just get it formatted for paperback so I can add it to my shelf…

That’s about it for me, guys. Oh, but have I mentioned, The Avengers is opening this Friday?

We saw Friends With Benefits over the weekend in an attempt to beat the heat and I thought I’d write an informal review. I know, I know, you see the trailer and you already know how this one’s gonna end. They’ll both give up their hard hearted cynicism and wind up all ooey, gooey in love with each other amid a parade of hearts and flowers, right? So why do we bother to see these movies? Didn’t they do this one last year with Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher?I admit I was about to give this one a pass until I saw the preview for it at another movie and the scene where her mother walks in on them in bed together made me crack up. (I wish tv commercials for movies had half of the story the in theater previews have, I would see so many more movies!) That and I like both Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, so I was up for a bit of fun on a Saturday afternoon.

So this one is about NY Head Hunter Jamie who is courting Dylan, head of design for a little website in LA to take over a prestigious position at GQ magazine. He flies out to check it out, and Jamie decides to sell him on New York instead of the position and takes him on a whirlwind walking tour of the city (in killer heels no less…) He agrees and takes the position and a friendship montage begins.

While hanging out and watching a sappy chick flick, they lament on how they miss sex because neither one of them is in a relationship at the moment. The idea comes up that they should add some sexual benefits to their friendship and each agree to give it a go. He’s emotionally unavailable and she’s emotionally damaged, sounds like a recipe for easy uncomplicated sex, right? That might have worked for me, except for it was kinda unappealing, the way they talked through the sex, each giving critique and complaints. It made it kinda technical and maybe that was the point, but it was a little awkward to watch.

So is Friends With Benefits worth seeing? I’d say yes if you’re a fan of either of the stars. Jamie comes across as kinda hard most of the time, but I can see what they’re going for and Dylan a little silly from time to time, but both were enjoyable to watch. Whenever her mother is in the scene she steals the show, those were the funniest moments and I did tear up a little near the end when he and his father have a heart to heart (minus pants in an airport restaurant no less). I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars, definitely worth the matinee price.

It happens to the best of us but I’ve had a pretty serious derailment for the new book over the past couple of weeks. As I was writing, I had a realization that it was really splitting apart into two books; the story of my MC coming home and dealing with past issues with his family and friends and the ghost hunting storyline. So, I’ve stopped the writing and I’m planning on pulling them apart into two separate books. I haven’t made a whole lot of progress in this respect because I’ve been going through some health issues and diagnostics for that. The good news is I don’t have a brain tumor or stroke, but the bad news is, the search continues to figure out what’s going on with me.

As such, I’ve been taking it easy, not really pushing myself as much as I might normally do with my writing and I’ve just got the one True Blood fanfic going at the moment as well as the Vampire Diaries recap. Hopefully I’ll get some answers soon and I can focus on getting better and moving forward again. I really am looking forward to working on the next Vampire Diaries fic, but for the moment that’s on hold.

In other news, I saw I am Number Four last weekend and it was better than I thought it would be. The main kid wasn’t as annoying as the commercials would have us believe and there was a lot more Timothy Olyphant in it than I was expecting which makes it Olyphantastic!

This year is starting off kind of blecch for me. I took a few days off from writing as I was wholly unmotivated over the long weekend apart from an update to Tabula Rasa on Friday morning, and it was hard to jump back into it yesterday when I started writing again. Work’s just been particularly brutal and I’m having a hard time lassoing my muse to get her to sit still enough to bring those words when I get home from work.

So fanfiction.net’s reports have been broken since the new year hit and I’ve realized something… I’m kinda a numbers whore… I didn’t realize how many times I like to go back there and see how many people are reading and reviewing until the function was gone! It looks like they’re slowly filtering those numbers back in and I can at least see what my numbers are like today (1.65K hits today, woot!). Maybe now that they’re back up again I’ll be motivated to crank out another update tonight. Either that or I might be distracted by watching another Olyphantastic movie…

Anyone interested in an RPG? I joined a brand new one for Vampire Diaries (of course) and it’s having trouble finding other writers. I’ve got Damon there, it’ll be set sometime in season 2 I believe. Send me a note if you’re interested, I’ll send you the link on yahoogroups.

On a totally unrelated note, Happy Birthday to Bradley Cooper today! Watching The A-Team again today in his honor in blu-ray. That is just one pretty man…

For all of you that celebrate it, I hope you have a great time with family and friends.

We are watching all sorts of movies and taking a little break from writing over here. Although at present we’re watching The Crazies, not exactly a holiday flick but I do love me some Timothy Olyphant. It was either that or Hitman again, both are Olyphantastic!

Now on to the Scrooged marathon on AMC. Perhaps we’ll go to the actual movie theater today and see True Grit or Tron. I dunno though, I always thought it was pretty evil to make theater employees work on xmas when everybody and their mother has the day off.

Anyway, Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones and see you next year!

Holy cow… I’ve gone through some writing fests over the years, but have never felt so drained as I do right now. In anticipation of starting the new book on September 1st, I decided to power through the rest of my fanfic One Is the Loneliest Number, thinking I had maybe 3 or 4 more chapters to go – each averaging about 3000 words a piece. Easy over the weekend, right? Well six chapters (and a fair amount of RP with a friend) later I am just exhausted, ready to just veg in front of the TV and watch some mind numbingly stupid movie. I love stupid movies by the way, in case I’ve never mentioned it before. Amazon Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death… pure genius. Those silly movies from the 80′s that John Cusack was in, One Crazy Summer, Better Off Dead… some of my all time favorites. Throw in some musical numbers and it’s even better… Grease II anyone?

My new current favorite is The Lost Samaritan with Ian Somerhalder, who just looks pretty no matter how bad the film is, but suffers through the terrible script and even worse supporting cast (apart from the romantic lead, I liked her). I once read a review who said it looked like Ian owed a gambling debt to the director and was forced to repay it by doing this movie and I have to agree, the movie is a trainwreck! But oh so much fun! If you can accept that the “FBI” all have bad German-American accents and seemed to pick up their dialogue from bad 80′s cop shows. Oh and the liberal use of the American Flag and references to being in the US despite all the foreign plates on the cars and plenty other errors that reveal the film’s actual German heritage… just hilarious.

So there’s more I could go on about the subject, but the truth is that my hands are just killing me and I need the rest! I’m off to have a cup of cocoa, a couple of Tylenol and watch last week’s episode of The Gates.